95 
to illustrate the suggestions made, and make no claim to originality so 
far as the principles involved are concerned. All have been applied 
by no means as often as they might have been, but more often by far 
than the cases cited by me. The importance of fall plowing to destroy 
forms hibernating in the soil is not even suspected by many of our 
farmers, but need not be dwelt upon here. 
In one other way much may be done to check many forms of destruc- 
tive insect life — the scientific application of chemical manures, or fer- 
tilizers. 
In the older States the natural fertility of the soil has long been ex- 
hausted, and it is necessary to supply the necessary plant food in some 
form. The traditional fertilizer is barnyard manure, and to this a very 
large proportion of the farmers cling as the only true material. Scien- 
tific experiments and investigations have shown that the necessary ele- 
ments of plant food can be as well or better furnished in the shape of 
inorganic substances, and that they possess in many directions points 
of superiority over the traditional barnyard manure. In New Jersey 
the use of these chemical or " artificial" fertilizers or manures is annu- 
ally increasing, and many of our best truckers, those that actually 
make farming pay, use nothing else. Merely as an instance of the 
result it may be recorded that the finest strawberries shown in Chicago 
this year were from New Jersey and were grown with chemical ferti- 
lizers only. 
It occurred to me, some years ago, when I noted that farms where 
these chemicals were used were unusually free from insects, that they 
might have insecticide properties that could be very usefully employed. 
Peach orchards were then suffering quite severely from the Aphis per- 
sicce-niger, which sapped the roots, especially of small and nursery 
trees, and my first experiments were directed to the question of the 
effect of kainit and muriate of potash on plant lice. I found them suf- 
ficiently effective to risk recommending them for use, particularly the 
kainit. Since that time almost every large grower of peaches in the 
State has dosed his infested trees with kainit, and I have not yet found 
an instance of failure where it was intelligently applied. How far stu- 
pidity can go is shown by a grower who carefully piled little hills of 
this material round his nursery trees, to make certain it should all get 
to the roots. He lost almost every one of his trees, though the appli- 
cation, if broadcasted, would have been considered a moderate one 
only. Of course the potash acted as a stimulant and supplied needed 
plant food; but even though part of the improvement was explainable 
in this way in some cases, yet it really made very little difference so 
long as the primary object, the destruction of the Aphids, is con- 
cerned. 
In some sections of New Jersey the Corn Web-worm has become some- 
what troublesome of late years, and in this season of 1893 is worse than 
ever before. I have inquired and examined carefully in a number of 
